Page:Landmarks of Scientific Socialism-Anti-Duehring-Engels-Lewis-1907.djvu/219

 labor or in other words twelve is equal to seven. To make the matter more explicit, a peasant produces say twenty hectolitres of wheat in a year. During this time he consumes a sum of values which may be expressed by fifteen hectolitres. Then the twenty hectolitres have the same value as the fifteen in the same market under identical conditions. In other words 20 equals 15. And this is called political economy!

The entire development of human society from the position of savagery began from the day when the labor of a family resulted in the production of more than was necessity for its support, from the day when a part of the labor was no longer expended on mere means of living but was transformed into means of production. A surplus of labor product over and above the cost of the maintenance of labor, and the creation and increase of a social production and reserve fund out of this surplus was and is the foundation of all social, political and intellectual development. In history up to the present time this fund has been the property of a certain superior class which has, with its possession, also the political mastery and the spiritual supremacy. The approaching social revolution will make this social production and reserve fund that is the entire mass of raw material, instruments of production, and means of life for the first time really social property, in that it will put an end to its monopolisation by the superior class and make it the common possession of the entire society.

It is one of two things. Suppose value shows itself in the cost of maintenance of the necessary labor, that is in present society in wages. If such is the case every worker gets the value of his product in wages and the robbery of the working class by the capitalistic class is an impossiblity. Let it be granted that the cost of